Albert Gallatin, in full Abraham Alfonse Albert Gallatin (born Jan. 29, 1761, Geneva, Switz.—died Aug. 12, 1849, Astoria, N.Y., U.S.) fourth U.S. secretary of the Treasury (1801–14). He insisted upon a continuity of sound governmental fiscal policies when the Republican (Jeffersonian) Party assumed national political power, and he was instrumental in negotiating an end to the War of 1812.

Courtesy of the Independence National Historical Park Collection, Philadelphia

Gallatin plunged into business and public life after emigrating to the New World at age 19. Settling in Pennsylvania, he became a mainstay of the anti-Federalists (and, later, the Jeffersonian Republicans) in that area and in 1795 was elected to the House of Representatives. There he inaugurated the House Committee on Finance, which later grew into the powerful Ways and Means Committee. In 1797–98 he helped to reduce Federalist-sponsored expenditures aimed at promoting hostilities with France. He was bitterly denounced by Federalists in Congress, and, when the Alien and Sedition Acts were passed in 1798, Thomas Jefferson believed they were partly intended to drive Gallatin from office.

As secretary of the Treasury, Gallatin stressed simplicity in government and termination of the public debt. Despite heavy naval expenditures and the $15,000,000 Louisiana Purchase (1803), he managed to reduce the public debt by $23,000,000 within eight years.

The declaration of war with Great Britain in 1812 shattered all of Gallatin’s most cherished schemes, for he felt war to be fatal to the nation’s prosperity and progress. He therefore put the nation’s finances in the best order he could and set himself to attain an early peace. Grasping at Russia’s proffered mediation of the war, he sailed for Europe in May 1813. Refusing to deal through Russia, Great Britain expressed its willingness to proceed with direct negotiations, and commissioners from the two countries finally met at Ghent in August 1814. In the tedious discussions that followed, Gallatin played the leading role, preserving peace among his colleagues and establishing an enviable reputation as a diplomat. Peace was signed in the Treaty of Ghent (December 24).

While still in Europe, Gallatin was appointed minister to France (served 1816–23), after which he returned to the United States, only to be embroiled in a bitter intraparty political struggle. After serving briefly as minister to Great Britain (1826–27), he retired from public life and became president of the National (later the Gallatin) Bank in New York City (1831–39). A student of the Indian tribes in North America, he founded the American Ethnological Society of New York (1842) and has sometimes been called the “father of American ethnology.”

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...cessation of the war between England and France for European supremacy permitted American merchants to trade with both sides and produced unprecedented national prosperity. Second, in selecting Albert Gallatin as secretary of the Treasury, Jefferson placed one of the most capable managers of fiscal policy in the most strategic location. Gallatin, a Swiss-born prodigy with impeccable...

...in St. Petersburg. That September the Russian government suggested that the tsar was willing to act as mediator between the two belligerents. Madison precipitately accepted this proposition and sent Albert Gallatin and James Bayard to act as commissioners with Adams, but England would have nothing to do with it. In August 1814, however, these gentlemen, with Henry Clay and Jonathan Russell,...

...in both groups. About Alexander Hamilton, who along with Adams was a leading Federalist, she wrote that she saw in his eyes “the very devil…lasciviousness itself.” She judged Albert Gallatin, a Republican opponent of her husband, “sly, artfull…insidious.” Her critics objected that the wife of the president should not insinuate herself in political...

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(1761-1849). The economist and statesman Albert Gallatin was the fourth U.S. secretary of the treasury (1801-14). He insisted upon a continuity of sound governmental fiscal policies when the Republican (Jeffersonian) Party assumed national political power. He was also instrumental in negotiating an end to the War of 1812.